Hope and Work

Every week, Healthyish editor Amanda Shapiro talks about what she's seeing, eating, watching, and reading in the wellness world and beyond. Pro tip: If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll get the scoop before everyone else.

Healthyish humans,

Yesterday I ran around in the pouring rain, from the gym to a coffee meeting to my polling place to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bay Ridge, where I spent the afternoon and evening knocking on people's doors. It was something I should've done a lot sooner this election season. If I had, I would've remembered what a simple and powerful choice it is, to show up in a place where the stakes are high, to stand face-to-face with people (or, uh, their closed doors), and talk about the most basic civil right we have: the right to vote.

Election Day is the easiest time to canvass because it's not the time to argue or convince. I spent my hours talking to registered Democrats, asking if they had a plan to vote, if they knew where to go, if they needed help getting there. By 7 p.m., the people answering their doors had mostly voted already. A lot of them were excited and hopeful. They offered me water and asked where the Gounardes campaign would be celebrating that night.

Bay Ridge is not the Brooklyn that most people think of when they hear the word. It's whiter and wealthier than the NYC average. It's a small town in the big city with the politics to match. Being there was a reminder that "the other side" is never as far away as we think. It's in our boroughs, our counties. It's a short drive or a train ride away.

I don't say this in a threatening way; it's actually empowering to do the work in your own backyard. In recent weeks, New Yorkers flooded Bay Ridge to campaign for two Democrats, Andrew Gounardes and Max Rose. And, last night, both of them won, both unseating Republican incumbents. On a night filled with disappointing news out of Texas, Florida, and North Dakota, these two victories—not to mention Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's—gave me hope.